Since Forbes hired me in 1995 to write a legal column, I’ve taken advantage of the great freedom the magazine grants its staff, to pursue stories about everything from books to billionaires. I’ve chased South Africa’s first black billionaire through a Cape Town shopping mall while admirers flocked around him, climbed inside the hidden chamber in the home of an antiquarian arms and armor dealer atop San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, and sipped Chateau Latour with one of Picasso’s grandsons in the Venice art museum of French tycoon François Pinault. I’ve edited the magazine’s Lifestyle section and opinion pieces by the likes of John Bogle and Gordon Bethune. As deputy leadership editor, these days I mostly write about careers and corporate social responsibility. I got my job at Forbes through a brilliant libertarian economist, Susan Lee, whom I used to put on television at MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Before that I covered law and lawyers for journalistic stickler, harsh taskmaster and the best teacher a young reporter could have had, Steven Brill.

If given the choie to hire a Millennial worker or someone age 50 or over, 60% of hiring managers said they would hire the mature worker.

We keep hearing that older workers have a tough time landing new jobs. In a survey of 1,500 hiring managers that I wrote about last week, only 1% of respondents said it is easiest to place job-seekers in their 50s, as opposed to younger workers in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Finally, there is some good news for older workers. Adecco, the giant Zurich, Switzerland-based human resources consulting firm, just ran a survey of 500 hiring managers that found that respondents said they were three times as likely to hire a mature worker, defined as age 50 or above (60%), as they were to hire a Millennial (20%). Millennial is defined as those born just before the millennium, from 1981 through 2000.

Why the vote of confidence for older workers? The survey showed that hiring managers associate mature workers with being reliable (91%) and professional (88%). The survey also found that older workers have superior writing skills, with only 9% of respondents saying that mature workers need to improve their prose, while 46% say Millennials need to become better writers.

When it comes to attire and social media, just 24% of respondents said older workers fail to dress properly for an interview, while 75% said Millennials make that mistake. Only 19% of respondents said older workers post inappropriate content online, while 70% said Millennials have this problem.

More pluses for older workers: 77% of hiring managers think mature workers are good listeners, 75% said they have a “positive work ethic,” 61% said they are good problem solvers and 75% said they are strong leaders/managers. By contrast, only 22% said Millennials are good listeners, 15% said they have a positive work ethic, 23% said they are good problem solvers and just 10% said they are strong leaders. When it comes to reliability, only 2% said they think Millennials are reliable and only 5% think they are “professional.” That contrasts with 88% of respondents who think workers over 50 are professional.

Millennial workers do have an edge in some areas. Seventy-four percent of respondents said Millennials are creative, while only 17% see older workers as more creative. Millennials are also better at networking, said 73% of respondents, while only 22% said older workers are strong networkers. Not surprisingly, when it comes to technological acumen, only 5% of respondents said Millennials need to develop stronger skills, while 72% think older workers need to improve in this area.

The survey also asked about interviewing skills. Along with dressing inappropriately and posting compromising content on social media sites, 60% of hiring managers said that Millennials show a lack of interest in the job by failing to ask questions about the company or the position. For mature workers, the biggest mistake they make in interviews is asking for a high salary; so said 51% of hiring managers.

The survey also asked about the skill areas that workers most need to improve. You might think Millennials are perceived as great time managers, since they have grown up with the distractions of texting and social media. But 46% of hiring managers said Millennials need to improve their time management skills, while only 10% said this is a problem for mature workers.

Janette Marx, a senior vice president at Adecco, says the takeaway for older workers is that “there are many companies where mature workers are in high demand.” The most important thing for older workers from the survey: They need to embrace technology. “It helps show that the older worker is on the cutting edge,” she says. If they are interviewing with someone who is younger, they should demonstrate that they believe they have something to learn. Though not a majority, 33% of hiring managers surveyed said they thought mature workers have trouble taking direction from younger management.

The other lesson for mature workers, who may not have interviewed for a job for a long time: They should sell themselves in interviews by talking specifically about accomplishments and quantifying their achievements with numbers. “You don’t need to be humble,” says Marx. “Make sure you are truly telling your story and selling yourself.”

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